Three Gunshots
by madame.alexandra
Summary: There are worse things than 'Judgment Day'. Warning: includes suicide/suicidal themes & character death[s].


_a/n: for this piece, accept all events leading up to Jenny taking a leave of absence in "Internal Affairs." ignore the events of "Judgment Day," and assume that Vance was performing Jenny's duties/did split up the team while she - disappeared._

_that being said, this is a slightly abstract concept piece that addresses the fact that we've been told Jennifer Shepard was intended to die the way Michelle Lee did._

* * *

_all i ever learned _  
_from love_  
_was how to shoot _  
_at someone_  
_who outdrew you_

_[Hallelujah] _

* * *

**The judgment day had dawned—**

* * *

It was surreal; amidst the static of police radio, the sirens, the humming of fluorescent bulbs, the chaos of feminine screams and masculine bellows—amidst the cacophony of unbearable sound, a paradoxical, exquisite silence reigned, and the visceral assault to the senses was the blinding array of emergency lights, and the smell of charred steel and blood—and desperation, and fear.

Three gunshots pierced that ethereal silence: the first, inevitable, the solemn and damning last resort—it impacted between her eyes—the second, a trained agent's reflex, though it resonated violently—it punctured her breast, at the heart—and the third, entirely unexpected, fired a stunning two minutes after the others, a final act of penance, of surrender, of defeat, and of respite.

She hadn't recovered from the blow of the first two—but the sound of the third, the immaculate pop, the unpredictable turn of the gun—it provoked a reaction she had never allowed herself before—she, a trained Mossad officer; she, a warrior, a stone-cold assassin—all steel and ice and raw power—

Her eyes widened, and in the drowning silence that followed the shots, that signaled the end of the screaming and the shouting—she collapsed, her shoulders slamming into the metal of the city bus around her—her knees impacting the metal floor with blunt thud, and she was barely conscious of the hand that tried to catch her, of the man who stood next to her, silent, pale-faced, hollow—and _she_ screamed—in shock, in anguish, in absolute despair—and she turned her head away, still screaming, screaming until her throat burned—the only sound she could hear was her own scream, and the only thing she could hear was a hoarse, female echo—

_Take the shot. Take it, Jethro. Take the goddamn shot!_

Pounding footsteps, scrambling footsteps—and someone was next to her, grabbing her, pale-faced and terrified—she held her hand to her face, and her lungs stopped working, she couldn't breathe, she couldn't scream anymore, and he was shaking her shoulders, shouting at her, pleading with her, shouting for DiNozzo—

"What happened? What happened?" McGee demanded, his voice cracking—he'd never seen Ziva—he had never imagined she could ever—

He finally looked, he looked to the gory scene where she refused to turn her head, and there was DiNozzo, standing there in the wreckage, and the depth of emptiness in his eyes as he helped Lee to her feet was haunting, it was—

"I didn't think he'd do it," someone said.

McGee wrapped his arms around Ziva, holding her numbly, and she started screaming again.

* * *

It was surreal; amidst the static of police radio, the sirens, the humming of fluorescent bulbs, the chaos of feminine screams and masculine bellows—amidst the cacophony of unbearable sound, a paradoxical, exquisite silence reigned, and the visceral assault to the senses was the blinding array of emergency lights, and the smell of charred steel and blood—and desperation, and fear.

In this moment, the harsh, unforgiving gun against her jaw was the nucleus of her world—she saw nothing but blurs in front of her, blurs blocked by tears that were hot with unfiltered terror and guilt, and the absolute certainty that she would not weather this storm alive—to be hostage between these two, to have her life held against this woman's—she knew she would lose.

She had been manipulated, used, scapegoated—her sister had been victimized, her career had been ended, and the shock of discovering who was at the root of it was unparalleled; she couldn't process it—she couldn't process anything, with a gun to her head, and electricity snapping around them, and metal burning, and agents negotiating—sweat and perfume enveloped her—and she choked, and the gun slammed into her jaw harder—

"Let her go!"

She closed her eyes, and she prayed, she moved her lips, she ached for someone to shoot, for it to end, and then the arm around her neck tightened—and she felt strangled, strangled by the physical strain, by how wrong she had been in trusting this woman, strangled by the magnitude of this—

Her hair was yanked back, long nails scraped her neck—and two shots rang out, and the gun left her cheek and she fell forward, gasping, her palms and forehead slamming into the floor, and she was looking up, blinking, crying, when another shot echoed around the city bus, and then—unbelievably, there was screaming, hysterical, hoarse, manic screaming, and she couldn't get up—there was red hair spread like fire out over her ankles, a body weighing down her knees—

"What happened? What happened?"

She heaved and vomited, screams echoing in her ears—desperate, panicked screams, goading screams—

_Take the shot. Take the shot, Jethro. Take the shot! _

He was helping her up—DiNozzo gave her his hand.

"Michelle," he said—there was such a dull, empty, lightless look in his eyes, like his soul was gone, like it was all gone, and she stood, only to see the devastation, and to collapse again, into seat—and if only, if only Ziva would stop _screaming—and_ Michelle lifted her head, her hands shaking—

"I didn't think he'd do it," she cried, a monstrous kind of relief flooding her. "I—I didn't think he could live with it!"

DiNozzo's eyes were on Gibbs.

"He didn't."

And she—she realized what the third shot had been.

* * *

It was surreal; amidst the static of police radio, the sirens, the humming of fluorescent bulbs, the chaos of feminine screams and masculine bellows—amidst the cacophony of unbearable sound, a paradoxical, exquisite silence reigned, and the visceral assault to the senses was the blinding array of emergency lights, and the smell of charred steel and blood—and desperation, and fear.

She made her decision when she forced a hostage to her knees and slammed a gun into her jaw; she signed her death warrant, and she did it with relish—she knew this was the only way out—and he saw that; she saw the horror in his eyes when he realized how this was going to end—and it was seconds later that _they_ followed him, standing uncertainly, wide-eyed, confused, guns in hand—

And he, her old partner, trained his weapon on her, between the eyes—and he asked—

"Why?"

And his voice was hoarse, and husky, like it used to be in bed, and she yanked Michelle Lee, the poor bitch, yanked her hair violently and made her cry out in terror, and she wrapped an arm around her small neck and she met his eyes violently, hollowly—dejectedly.

He had unraveled the web, and it had led him to the impossible—the puppeteer behind Lee's murderous, traitorous acts, the woman he'd trained—and it all unfolded before he could catch up—he stumbled; he didn't know how they got here—to this moment, this empty city bus, with her holding Lee's life in her hands, caged in a corner like an animal—and willing to die.

His aim was sure, his eyes were hard—but his resolve waivered and struggled; he knew he was here to protect the victim, the innocent, the hostage—but she was a part of his life that had been light, and love, and hope—and this was a deconstruction of all of that—

Her green eyes held his, unforgiving.

"I couldn't beat them," she said venomously. It was brutal, detached—cold. "I joined them."

"This isn't you, Jen."

"This is me!" she shrieked. She shoved the gun against her captive. "This is my answer to their injustice, to their _bureaucracy!"_ she raged.

"This is your answer?" he roared—pleading, desperate, unable to remember negotiation; this was personal, this was emotional—this was—

"They took my father's honor; they took his life!" she screamed. "And when I had the man responsible, this government, this country I devoted my life to—and he devoted his life to—they took Benoit, and they made him a confidant, a protectorate!"

"So you turn yourself into him? You let the bastards win?"

She shoved Michelle again, jamming her knee into her back.

"It's a radical intellectual response to injustice," she growled.

"It's espionage!" he roared. His eyes were so broken, shards of blue glass in tired pools. "You let it _destroy_ the woman I knew!"

Her eyes bore into him.

"He was my blood," she hissed. "You know—blood is what matters. You understand—the lengths we go to, to avenge our blood—you did the same; for _Shannon,_ for _Kelly—"_

His head spun; his conscious seemed to fracture. He jerked his arm, and trained it back on her.

"Not at the expense of innocent lives!"

"The arrogance of law enforcement is the assumption that we can decide who is innocent," she shouted, and reared back, yanking Michelle with her. "You know how this is going to end."

His finger twitched—twitched away from the trigger—and his ears rang with an ethereal silence, as if it was suddenly just he—he and Jenny, in a room, a room lit with white light, and he realized—he wanted to blame this on illness, to claim there was something wrong in her brain—but her heart had gone sour, and her soul was infected, and his heart had been bled dry—by her, by the loss of his family, by everyone he had failed to save.

"I won't shoot you, Jen," he said—so low, he thought he might not be heard.

Michelle moaned, desperate.

She smiled—an awful, scared, exquisite, terribly beautiful smile—and calmly she said:

"Take the shot. Take the shot, Jethro."

She goaded him.

"Take the shot!"

He didn't move—his eyes stung, his lungs burned, his skin seemed to alight—and he knew he wouldn't make it through this; he knew his responsibility, his duty to the hostage at her feet—but this was the rock bottom of a spiral that started when he lost his memory, and this was going to end him—this was something he couldn't recover from—

If he faltered, he would carry Michelle's death on his shoulders—if he fired, he the bullets would be the harbinger his own.

"_Take the goddamn shot, Jethro!"_ she screamed—and he saw that she was determined, scared, desperate—

She knew there was no way out, and even if she regretted the things she had done, the way she had taken them all in, betrayed country and kin in a convoluted effort to finally get the frog—and she knew she was guilty, and they would crucify her alive, and she wanted peace as badly as he did—

His eyes met hers, over the gun, over the black crown of Michelle Lee's head, and he saw her laughing in Paris, smiling in bed, wrapped in his arms, crying on the bridge near the Seine—and he saw her descent into this madness—

"What did we always say in Paris?" she asked.

He swallowed.

"They will not take us alive," he answered, automatically.

"Take the shot, Jethro."

His eyes were glued to hers.

She yanked Michelle's head back, moved the gun, the threat real—

He fired—two shots before he could think, and he saw the force of it propel her back, pierce her skull, spray her blood, drop her to the floor—and Michelle collapsed—and he was standing there, his eyes unfocused, and they fell to the gun in his hand—and suddenly he was back in the cemetery, in front of Shannon and Kelly's graves—and it was a quick, decisive moment that led him to lift the gun, and press it to his temple.

"Boss!" bellowed someone—but someone didn't matter.

He couldn't come back from this; he couldn't live—with _this._

She was right—blood was what mattered; and his blood was dead, and her blood, Jen's blood, the blood that had been to him, was on the windows, and the floor, and his hands.

* * *

It was surreal; amidst the static of police radio, the sirens, the humming of fluorescent bulbs, the chaos of feminine screams and masculine bellows—amidst the cacophony of unbearable sound, a paradoxical, exquisite silence reigned, and the visceral assault to the senses was the blinding array of emergency lights, and the smell of charred steel and blood—and desperation, and fear.

Exquisite, ethereal silence fell.

There he stood, supporting her, the victim, his eyes dead and hollow, and McGee was sitting on the city bus stairs, cradling Ziva—hoarse sobs wracked her body, and DiNozzo ignored them—and the radio silence screamed in the atmosphere—and he grabbed the senior agent's shoulders.

"What happened?"

DiNozzo, checking Michelle for head injuries, shook his head.

"He shot her," he said in a hollow voice.

"Jethro?" Ducky's voice was old, tired, raw and shocked. "Jethro—he shot Jennifer?"

"He had to, Ducky, he knew it would come to this," DiNozzo said—dead voice, dead soul; there was nothing to him.

"I didn't think he'd do it," Michelle said.

"What happened? What happened?" McGee kept repeating.

"Where is he?" Ducky asked desperately, as if he could feel his heart break. "Jethro, he won't—he won't recover from this."

DiNozzo was staring at him, staring at him, and Ducky looked around—at Ziva sobbing, screaming, at McGee's bewildered, stricken pale face—and he looked at the broken windows of the city bus, and he swallowed.

"Where is he?" he repeated, suddenly cold—and he tried not to remember Jennifer's hoarse screams, he'd heard them as he ran from the car—

_Take the shot. Take the shot, Jethro! Take the goddamned shot!_

"He shot her," DiNozzo repeated.

Ducky said nothing.

"He shot her, and then he shot himself."

Ducky leaned heavily against the bus.

DiNozzo stepped back from Michelle. He turned, and he surveyed them, and the weight of responsibility crashed onto his shoulders—he had ruined her chances at getting Rene Benoit, he had been too distracted, he hadn't moved fast enough, he had stood there while Gibbs put a gun to his head—

"Boss!" he bellowed, turning and slamming his fists into the bus.

The metal screech of his fists screamed into the night, and when let his head fall, and let his eyes close in defeat, Ziva's hoarse screaming faded, and Michelle's sobbing subsided, and McGee stopped questioning, and Ducky stopped gasping for air—and there was nothing but exquisite, malevolent silence.

Three gunshots had pierced that exquisite, malevolent silence: the first, inevitable, the solemn and damning last resort—it impacted between her eyes—the second, a trained agent's reflex, though it resonated violently—it punctured her breast, at the heart—and the third, entirely unexpected, fired a stunning two minutes after the others, a final act of penance, of surrender, of defeat, and of respite.

* * *

**—the game of cloak and dagger was ended.**

* * *

_i'd like to take this moment to issue my apologies, and to tell you there's some meta-ramblings considering this piece on my blog. i'll post a link on my profile.  
-alexandra_

_[feedback seriously appreciated, y'all]_

_story#173_


End file.
